> I also seem to remember that recent ( last year or more ) versions of
> Ubuntu have no "root" password, but insist on you using "sudo" from your
> own user account.
There's a big difference between "insisting" and coming configured that
way by default.
To switch to using a root password:
$ sudo passwd root
To switch to using sudo instead of a root password:
$ apt-get install sudo ; adduser username sudo
To disable the root password:
$ sudo passwd -l root
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